FreshWebz Web Design & Affiliate Marketing Blog

I’ve been carrying out a lot of link building on Cashback Shopper as its Google rankings have pretty much vanished & I’m keen to recover them. I wonder if it’s because the site is a white label & Google has decided it’s just duplicate content.

However, a recent ranking check of Bing has revealed that Cashback Shopper has 15 page 1 positions, 5 on page 2 & 5 on page 3, for some of the most popular search terms relating to cashback shopping. This is how the site used to feature in Google, so I hope these positions aren’t just temporary until Bing picks up a market share of searchers.

It’s very frustrating that Cashback Shopper is in no4 spot for “cashback shopping” and “cashback uk” in Bing, but neither phrase is anywhere in Google! I guess I just have to keep trying to find more Google worthy links for the site

I received an e-mail from Google, telling me about their new search-based keyword tool!

They state “the Search-based Keyword Tool compares the content of your website against actual Google search queries to provide a list of relevant keywords which you don’t currently have in your AdWords campaigns. This new tool can help your business to grow and innovate on your keyword choices by taking the guesswork out of the process. Rather than adding keywords to an ad campaign based on what one thinks a user might search on, this tool enables you to manage your keywords based on what you know users are searching on.”

I visited the tool & was presented with a list of over 800 keyphrases, which Google says have been searched for & appear on relevant pages in my site. I decided to pick all the phrases that had a suggested cost per click up to and including £1.00 (246 of them).

I’ve spent the last 4 hours adding the phrases to my AdWords campaign, targeting the landing pages to the ones indicated by the Tool & using the suggested bids. However, as soon as I checked the keywords, all bar one are not displaying due to the bid amount being too low (even though it was the one suggested!). The quality score of the landing pages are also deemed poor, despite them being the ones that sparked off the whole process!

So, thanks Google; for suggesting I use your new tool; only to find that despite following all your suggestions, you STILL don’t display any of my ads unless I bid some ridiculous amount per click! I’ve just basically wasted an entire afternoon on this nonsense & on top of it, the new interface is rubbish! It’s slow, jerky & very frustrating to use.

What on earth is the point in giving me this information, which appears to be totally useless? Their e-mail ended:

“The Search-based Keyword tool actually found 2954 recently-searched keywords related to your site. For each suggested keyword, the tool will also show you:

• The average number of searches per month
• The competitive bidding level for each term
• The estimated bid to appear in the top three ad positions
• The suggested landing page for each keyword

To see all 2954 new keywords and decide which ones to add to your campaigns, go to www.google.com/sktool, sign in to your AdWords account, and enter your website URL. We hope that you find the Search-based Keyword Tool useful in driving even more business to your website through Google AdWords!”

Errrrrr! No it isn’t useful, has wasted my time & has not given me any new (& reasonably priced), keyphrases that I can bid on!

I will definitely not be returning to AdWords any time soon!

I’ve started working on writing more articles & getting them submitted to various directories. This is a time consuming process, but appears to be one of the few effective methods of getting decent, quality links pointing to my sites.

Although this whole writing process doesn’t come naturally to me, it’s surprising how quickly I’m now reaching my 500+ word target each time. But 500+ words in themselves are not enough; ensuring that the article contains combinations of the keywords & keyphrases you want to target is vital, as this content then shows that your site is relevant to those searched for keyphrases.

But are article submissions worth the time & effort? Once registered with an article directory, manual submissions take around 10 to 15 minutes on average to login, format and submit properly. Obviously, the writing of the article is a separate issue & can take a couple of hours to research and write. However, once the article is written, it can be re-submitted to a number of directories, withi only minor adjustments.

The more directories you submit your articles to, the more exposure they will receive & more links will be detected by the search engines, but you will need to make at least 10 submissions to get a reasonable exposure for your articles, adding up to a couple of hours per article!

To make the most of my time I have to make sure that the article directories I am submitting to, are able to bring me as many visitors and backlinks as possible. I am going to try to do at least 10 manual submissions for each article, so it’s important to choose those directories wisely. The only two ratings easily available to web users to judge the quality of websites and web pages are its Alexa Rating and Google PageRank. Both are not conclusive and often do not reflect the true authority or traffic of a page. But since there is nothing better, I will stick to these two figures when deciding if a directory is worth submitting to. Of course, one must not forget the power of themed sites. If you have a choice between a general directory and a directory focusing on the article topic; it’s better to choose the latter.

The current Top 10 article directories (by Alexa Ranking and with a Page Rank of around 5/6) are shown below & these are my starting point for any article submissions:

1. ezinearticles.com
2. ArticlesBase.com
3. buzzle.com
4. helium.com
5. webpronews.com
6. goarticles.com
7. searchwarp.com
8. articledashboard.com
9. articlealley.com
10. articlesnatch.com

However, there are some restrictions placed on articles by these directories; for example, buzzle.com insists that their articles are unique & not reproduced on any other directory, so you will have to write a different article just for this site. Some, such as ArticlesBase.com may apply “nofollow” to the article links, so you won’t benefit from an inbound link.

EzineArticles.com and Buzzle.com can bring you a lot of traffic, GoArticles.com brings you backlinks, and ArticlesFactory.com PageRank. You can even earn money from your articles by publishing them on Helium!

If you don’t have the time, or are not able to write articles by yourself, there are many content providers and ghost writers who can provide articles & then other services that submit them to the directories for you. I have used some of these services myself in the past, but I think the old adage of “you get what you pay for” applies, as I have not been impressed with the cheaper offerings I have seen so far!

I am considering using some more expensive services in the near future, but the cost does vary wildly; from $5 per article (for very poor offerings), to the most recent quote I had of £100 per article!! I think something inbetween will be more in my league & will blog about any that I find particularly useful/value for money.

Secretly spy on & uncover anyone’s Google Adword Keywords while you browse Google in real-time!

Download This Revolutionary New Keyword Research Tool For Free NOW!!

Keywords are the backbone and foundation of an online business as they are how people find your website. Without keywords, hardly anybody would ever find your site to purchase whatever it is you’re selling.

When broken down into its simplest form, what separates a failing online business from a thriving one is that the thriving business knows EXACTLY which targeted keywords/keyphrases will send “buyers” to their website. While, the failing internet business (99% of internet businesses) are blindly guessing which keywords to advertise with.

Based on this extremely simplistic view, we know that in order to have a successful internet business, we MUST know with 100% certainty which keywords are going to send potential buyers to our website – people that are actually looking to purchase whatever it is we’re selling.

Now, the question is…How do find out which keywords to advertise and base our business marketing on?

This is where PPC Web Spy comes into play…

With PPC Web Spy, you’ll be able to uncover all of the keywords that successful businesses are already making money with. Then, you’ll be able to take those keywords and advertise your own business.

Let me give you an example…

Let’s say you were selling a “how to make money on the internet” eBook. You would use PPC Web Spy to show you all of the keywords that a very well-known, proven, “how to make money on the internet” eBook seller was already advertising with.

Instead of you spending months and even years figuring out which keywords could potentially make you money, you can simply swoop in and take the keywords from this successful eBook seller… The keywords that probably took them months or years to uncover.

Then, just advertise your own eBook with those keywords and you can expect similar results!

Here’s a brief rundown of the specific “features” within PPC Web Spy…

You’ll be able to quickly and easily uncover any Google Adwords advertiser’s keywords in only a few seconds! Then, simply take those keywords and advertise your own product or service and get ready for the money to come rolling in!

You’ll be able to see critical Adwords data relating to each keyword. Data such as:

• The actual Adwords ads your competitors have written for each keyword
• The Cost Per Click, or amount your competitors are paying for each keywords they’re bidding on
• Your competitor’s Adwords rank, so you’ll be able to determine how much money you should be spending to get your site to a similar rank, to expect similar results.
• The total daily amount your competition is spending via Google Adwords
• And much more!

You can use PPC Web Spy to generate your own giant list of keywords based upon any of the individual keywords your competition is using!

You can also generate a giant, targeted keyword list by inputting your competitor’s domain name, allowing you to build an even larger, more targeted keyword list!

You’ll even be able to see the exact landing page (i.e. destination URL) that each Adwords advertiser is sending visitors to, WITHOUT actually clicking on their Adwords ad and charging them money – a very generous touch   )

It means that you’ll be able to shave off hours, days, months, and even years of time doing keyword research and testing exactly which keywords convert visitors to buyers. It means you won’t have to waste massive amounts of money as you slowly figure out your market’s “best” keywords.

PPC Web Spy saves you both time & money… and because PPC Web Spy is a Firefox plugin, rather than a bulky, standalone desktop application, you’ll be able to save money and time as you casually browse Google like you normally would. It’s VERY cool and powerful.

Don’t forget, the software is FREE to download, so why not give it a try & see how it can make a difference to your keyword research?!

If you’re selling products and services that are related to a special area, it is crucial that your website gets found by people that are looking for it. One of the easiest ways to get found by people that live in your area is to optimise your web page titles for your product & location.

What is the web page title?

The title of a web page is the text that is written between the tags in the HTML head code of a web page, is displayed in the web browser window when someone visits your website and it is usually used as the linked text when your website appears in the search results.

Why should you use optimised web page titles?

The web page title is one of the main factors that Google, Yahoo and other search engines use to rank web pages. A good, relevant, informative web page title greatly improves the chances of getting high search engine rankings for your product/service.

The web page title is used by the search engines as the bold linked text on search result pages. That means that it should be clear, relevant, concise and appealing, so that web surfers will be drawn to click on it.

How to write your web page title so that it gets better local rankings

If you optimise your web page titles correctly, they will both increase your search engine rankings and attract people from the local area & those looking for your products/services, to your website.

You’ll benefit from targeted traffic and targeted traffic leads to more conversions i.e. sales. Here are some things that you can do to improve your web page titles:

Include the name of your business, important keywords and your city in the title of your homepage:

FreshWebz – Affordable web design in London and Essex

Depending on your business size, change the order of these items. Well known businesses should list their company name first. If your business is new then it’s usually better to list the keyword first:

Affordable web design for small businesses: Freshwebz in London

People are probably looking for a solution to their problem (web design) instead of your actual company name. Instead of your town, you can also use the name of the greater area if your service is available in that area.

Use a different title tag for every page. This is important! The title should reflect the content that can be found on the page, so it’s less effective just copying the homepage title to every page. For branding purposes, the titles should contain your company name and a popular keyword for which you want to be found on search engines:

FreshWebz: Search engine optimisation & SEO services in London and Essex
FreshWebz: Web design Portfolio – websites designed for recent clients
FreshWebz: Contact us for an affordable quote for your new website design

Use short web page titles. Short titles are much easier to read for web surfers. Do not try to stuff your title with keywords in the same way that you wouldn’t stuff your page content with keywords. It is much better if your web page title is highly relevant to one keyword, than somewhat relevant to many keywords. If you want to optimise your website for different keywords, optimise different pages for different keywords.

Do not use special characters in your titles. Avoid symbols and other special characters wherever possible. They might not be displayed properly on all computers and your website listing might look strange in the search results.

If you change your web page titles as described, your website will get better rankings on search engines and it will be found by people looking for your products/services & who live in the right area. By getting more visitors for one topic, you will improve the overall ranking of your site & so improve your position for other search terms.

Unfortunately, the web page title is not the only element that influences the position of your website in the search results of Google and other search engines. If you want to make sure that your site appears in the top 10 results, you should optimise all factors that are needed to get top rankings. FreshWebz can offer your website guaranteed Top 10 Google rankings for your desired keywords in the natural listings.

1. Look for keywords on your own web site.
Think like a customer and pick the words that your customers might be searching on to find you.

2. Use a keyword suggestion tool.
Google and Miva both offer keyword research tools. The Google Keyword Tool has been updated to show actual search volumes rather than a graphic. Miva also shows search totals on its Keyword Generator. Yahoo no longer offer the Overture tool, but if you are signed up to Yahoo Search Marketing, you can use the Yahoo! Keyword Assistant to research new keywords.

3. Think about keywords that attract customers at each stage of the buying cycle.
The buying cycle has three major phases: research, shopping and purchase. The closer someone is to buying, the more specific your keywords should be. For example, customers may search for “guitar” during research, “Fender guitar” while shopping, and “American Standard Fender Telecaster guitar” when they’re ready to purchase.

4. Pick a mix of broad and specific keywords.
Keep in mind that using more generic keywords, like “guitar,” can cause you to go through your budget and may not lead to sales as often, but can be helpful for driving traffic from prospective customers who are in the research phase. Selecting more specific keywords may deliver fewer clicks, but they may be more likely to result in sales.

The keyword selection process is one of the most important parts when it comes to creating your PPC ad’s, so you want to ensure that you get it right.

Selecting the correct keywords for your campaign is essential. It’s no use paying for under performing keywords that will just drain your account, with no ROI (return on investment).

So how do you know which keywords are classified as the “right keywords”?

1. Start with a List
Generate a list of keywords based on words defining your product, location, product/services etc. Carefully consider what terms users are likely to use in searching for your products/services. It is essential to use the keywords searchers use, rather than the ones you and your organization use to describe your product/service. So things that may seem obvious to you, are never searched for & vice versa.

2. Choose Specific but Not Popular Keywords
You’ll need to select keywords that are specific to your product or service offering, but you need to be careful not to select keywords that are extremely popular, as this may deplete your PPC funds sooner than expected. Certain phrases may cause your ad to appear constantly & therefore clicked on by people not really searching for your specific product. For example, I have recently run a campaign on car hire, airport parking, airport lounges & airport hotels for My Travel Extras. Although many people may search for these phrases, you have much more competition & therefore less chance of standing out from the crowd & getting a return from each click.

3. Use Phrases instead of single words.
You stand a better chance of winning the search engine wars as this helps to narrow down exactly what people are searching for. As mentioned above, rather than car hire as a search term, try using
“alicante car hire” or “car hire at gatwick”. These phrases will narrow down impressions to those people only searching for these products, who are more likely to buy as they are specifically looking for what you are offering, rather than paying for clicks for people looking for general car hire information.

4. Consider misspelled keywords
Everyone makes mistakes when they are typing, so who’s to say that your searchers don’t make this same mistake when typing in search queries – take advantage of this.

5. Constantly Change Your Keywords
Keywords should be evaluated frequently for performance. This can be done by reviewing your website statistics to see which terms are being effective in driving traffic to your website. Use Google Analytics for this as it’s free for anyone with a Google account & extremely comprehensive.

So don’t waste your hard earned money on keywords that just won’t give you customers. Take these tips into account when evaluating your keywords and see the increase in your ROI.

There are a number of tools available to help you research keywords: Google has its own Keyword Tool which also shows the volume of searches & number of competitors.

I also use Internet Business Promoter & Keyword Elite for generating keyword lists & also investigating the level of searches/competition for keyphrases.

Hot on the heels of all the recent (& ongoing?) Google upheaval, Yahoo! have just applied another update to their search ranking algorithm which will see changes in the Yahoo SERPS (search engine results pages). This update is the latest in a string of recent ranking algorithm tweaks with the previous update just over a month ago.

The process of crawling applying the algorithm to all the sites in the Yahoo index will take some time, which will shuffle around some of the pages in the Yahoo! index. Quote from the Yahoo blog:

“We’ll be rolling out some changes to our crawling, indexing and ranking algorithms over the next few days, but expect the update will be completed soon. As you know, throughout this process you may see some ranking changes and page shuffling in the index.”

Algorithm updates are especially important for webmasters because it gives a chance for any SEO efforts to be picked up and translated into ranking improvements. Some comments in the Yahoo post indicate that the update may have reduced the reliance on social sites and increased the “keywords in the URL” importance

Lets see what this change does to my rankings over the next few days/weeks! Fingers crossed the use of keywords in all my sites URL’s will make a difference!!